If you like the way snapshots work for virtual machines, you'll love that same physical system functionality with Redo.
Using Redo
Now it’s time to return to the Home screen, where the real Redo action happens. Select Backup or Restore from the list of options to move to the next screen to choose between backup or restore for your system.
Select Backup to start the backup process for your system. Note: You have to step through this backup procedure at least once prior to experiencing any failures on your system so that you have a restore point from which to choose. See Figure 6.
Figure 6: Beginning the Backup Process.
The first step in the backup process is to select your source drive for backup as shown in Figure 7. This example shows a virtual machine disk image but it works similarly for physical systems. Choose the drive that you wish to use as your backup source from the dropdown list and click Next to continue.
Figure 7: Selecting the Backup Source Drive in the Backup Wizard.
Figure 8 demonstrates that you can select individual partitions from the drive you chose in Figure 7 above. It’s recommended that you select all partitions as backup sources. You can choose individual partitions to restore during that part of the process. Click Next to continue.
Figure 8: Selecting the Backup Source Partitions in the Backup Wizard.
Select your destination folder for the backup. Either type in the full path or click the Browse button to interactively choose a location as shown in Figure 9. The path shown in Figure 9 is a locally connected USB drive. Click Next to continue.
Figure 9: Selecting the Backup Destination Location.
Finish the backup wizard and the backup begins as shown in Figure 10. The progress indicator keeps on the backup status. For an 8GB disk, the process takes very little time. Performing this same process on a 500GB disk takes about 35 minutes backing up to a local USB drive.
Figure 10: Backup in Progress.
How much space do you need for a backup? The 8GB virtual disk backup consumed 1.34GB of disk space and the 500GB physical disk nibbled a bit more at just over 4GB. The compression ratios are impressive but your consumed space will depend on the type of data on your source disk and how full the disk is.
The restore process works like the backup procedure but in reverse fashion. Boot the live CD, select Backup or Restore from the Home screen and follow the wizard through the proces of choosing your backup location and restoring your snapshot.
The file that the restore process searches for is the DATE.backup file, where DATE is the date of the backup. You’ll see several files in the backup location. First, is the DATE.backup text file that lists your disk’s partitions (sda1, sda5). Second, is the DATE.mbr file, which is the master boot record file that is not text and shouldn’t be edited or altered in any way. Third, is the DATE.sfdisk text file that describes the disk’s physical layout and filesystem types. It looks like the output of a sfdisk -l command. Next, is the DATE.size text file that provides the restore system with the exact size of the original disk. The remaining files are the compressed partition backup files (DATE_part1.000, DATE_part5.000).
The restore process will overwrite your selected target disk and all of its contents. Once complete, you can reboot your system without the live CD and work with your restored system.
Redo offers you an elegant and complete backup and recovery system. The only flaw with Redo, if there is one, is that the process is an offline one, meaning that backups must take place using the live CD. This process, while ensuring a complete backup of a quiescent system, is a bit offputting in a production environment. The remedy for the situation is to use Redo after you install the system, its updates, and applications to make a complete backup of a pristine system. Once the system is up and running, install a backup agent to take backups of all changed files so that the restore process is fast and efficient. When you have to take a Mulligan on a failed system, Redo makes the job easy and pleasant.
Taking a Mulligan is the illegal but somewhat accepted practice of redoing a failed shot in golf.
Kenneth Hess is a Linux evangelist and freelance technical writer on a variety of open source topics including Linux, SQL, databases, and web services. Ken can be reached via his website at
http://www.kenhess.com. Practical Virtualization Solutions by Kenneth Hess and Amy Newman is available now.
Comments on "Take a Mulligan with Redo Backup & Recovery"
It is nice to read about this Operating system. I have specially mentioned the words – operating system.
I have gone through many Linux “distros” and FreeBSD, OpenIndiana, etc and found that all of them are actually more than operating systems. They are ALSO systems with a collection of certain programs as the “developers” of these distros think that we need, and if anyone else makes a smaller “distro”, it is called a minimalist one.
The question is are we getting the “freedom” as said in the Open Source Community as it is understood? Or are we getting programs that we might never need too?
If we look at MS Windows, it doesn’t give us anything much, but a way to get connected to the internet, watch a dvd, listen to some music, write a letter using the wordpad and make notes using the notepad. Other than that noting else. If we are to read pdf files, we have to download a program from the internet. If we are to write a good letter, we have to download a free program, such as Abiword, LibreOffice, etc, and if we want to watch a presentation, we need additional programs which we have to download.
All these programs we download has the .exe extension and we are told how to use that extension to install that program.
If we need, and if we have the money, we would download or buy a program for MS Windows.
Now, for Linux based distributions, we can’t (and can) as they come with added plethora of programs, which we might use or not. We have .rpms, AURs, ,debs, etc and also tar.g2…
Most of the people don’t know how to use the tar.gz2, not like the MS Windows users know how to use the .exe extension.
Every website says that Linux is the kernal, meaning the base of the system. So, why not make one or more Linux distros like the MS Windows with the MINIMAL programs and let the user find out what he/she wants and download and install those?
Whatever Mr. Gates says, his MS windows is a MINIMALIST operating system! And it is massive like a cow (sorry, cows!) And it has nothing other than a dvd player, music player and note taker…what else?
So, how about making as many as anyone wants Linux based Operating Systems, but in a minimalistic way, and why not use the massive energy in producing, remastering, keeping and managing different repositories, etc and use that energy to produce more and more excellent programs?
I find the so-called minimalist distros like Crunchbang-Statler, AntiX Marek Edelmann quite enjoyable to work with. And play with too! I also found that, if a program installed using .tar.gz, such a program starts up faster than the ones installed using the Synaptic.
Actually, I learnt more about Linux using Crunchbang-Statler than using Ubuntu or OpenSuse or Fedora. It was lovely searching for programs, and finding out how to install them, and even uninstalling what I don’t want.
If anyone wants to check on any new “distro”, why should one HAS to download all other programs, one has in any other Linux distro, one already has? I have a feeling that lot of developers are sort of afraid that their “distros” would be so small then! Why should Linux distribution be like a cow like MS Windows? Sorry cows!
Think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. As to MS being a Minimalist OS, well hare-dee-har-har! You must be either joking or you have never opened a new PC and turned it on in many years! Vista had enough inessential apps to choke a pig, and the present Windows 7 Home Premium has one heck of a lot more apps and mini-apps than you have listed! In Linux, if the distro gives you apps you are not in need of you can at least uninstall them with out the complete OS self-destructing. Try and uninstall Notepad, Games, DVD Maker or Windows Defragger (I can add a dozen or more apps to this list of a supposed ‘stripped down’ M$ OS) and you will find out in a hurry that you can’t. Try and force the situation and you will quickly learn what the acronym BSOD means.
There is such a variety of Linux distributions,hybrids, forks, forked forks etc., that ALL users can find EXACTLY what they want. Distrowatch lists a ton of Mini-OS’, and bigger Distros come with Remastersys so any user can create the distro of his/her dreams. You can even start with just a Kernel of your choice if you are a real keener. Try ANY OF THE ABOVE with Microsoft!
Long live Linux Freedom, a REAL freedom of choice in a world where corporate dictatorship is an everyday FACT that oft time impacts our lives in a very negative, irreversible way.
From a man who spent 42 years at IBM and has seen it all,
J. ‘Rockets’ Redglare
Right on Mr. Redglare! I spent 13 years at Digital Equipment of Canada, and many years working with PCs. “Windows sucks” isn’t just an expression; it’s a fact. Yet, so many are reluctant to even try Linux for fear they might find the Holy Grail of O/S’ (?!) Noobies always complain it’s “so different” yet it is not, and the learning curve isn’t that steep. The time a Windows user wastes trying to remove malware and defrag their drives could be better spent learning a new operating system, one that actually “operates”.
As you say, distros come in every shape and size. Not only is Distrowatch a great resource for noobies, but Wikipedia helps a lot too!
it sounds and looks like this is an excellent tool: i can barely wait to burn it and use it on my friends’ Windows systems with viruses and whatnot :))
@chdslv bit of a deviation! Not sure I’d agree that a package installed using a package manager would be any slower than an uncompressed archive.
With reference to Redo, it would be nice to have a little more info about recovery from a backup.
What happens if your original physical drive is dead? Do you have to create partitions on a new drive – then recover – or does the tool take care of all of this for you?
I too would be interested in these abilities. For instance does it allow you to resize partitions on recover?
Great article, but yes,,same concerns about paritions..etc.
I use redo daily, to image pcs, it works great. It will back up to a network drive, as well as a flash drive, I can create a pc, just the way the customers need it, and shazam, have 10 of them in an hour. It creates am exact copy of the disk or partition when reimaged, I really used to like Acronis True Image, but they do not make a business friendly version, and the price of redo is right. another great thing about redo is it you make a flash drive install from it, you can install whatever apps you may need. I use network-manager-openvpn and can actually vpn to work on bootup to whatever from where-ever I am. I give it a 9 out of 10, only issue i have with it is it will not restore to a smaller drive. but I can live with that. This software has saved me days of work, from the old way I used to do it. We also used it on Dell blades we had in the back, made one blade, imaged the rest, did 13 pcs in a day and a half.
Hello,
not working in a vista network..even i share a folder with full access permisions it didn’t find any share folder.. what can i do ? is it somewhere a manual for REDO ? thanks
Looks great but to me it is fraught with issues. V1.0.1 & V1.0.2 both are problematic in creating a USB boot device & mostly bomb out mid way in the process. It is then unclear whether the USB drive actually completed fully. It can take 10 or more attempts to sucessfully make a bootable USB.
Second issue is it’s not reliable, for instance I did a backup on a PC (SATA drives) & it worked fine, now when I attempt a backup a week later it fails, I select from & to (same as first backup) & it hangs & does not start backing up data – a reboot is needed. No backup commences, this happened five times so I reluctantly returned to my old faithful (never fail) Norton Ghost V15.
Redo looked to have great potential but for me it is too unreliable, unpredictable & can’t be trusted to backup/restore. This is a great pity! For a tablet (no keyboard) Rego is an essential (Ghost will NOT/ can NOT work) so I use it for this, but it can take many attempts to get a successful backup or restore. Fortunately so far it has worked on the tablet but seems to have issues with some hardware!